– Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.

– Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.

– Culture is communication, communication is culture.

Nowhere in that definition is it stated that culture has to be pretty.

“I forget the word but there’s people throughout history that there responsibility is to be conveyors of truth onto next generations — there’s a word for that type of person — and I feel like I’m type of person that needs to carry on the truth that needs to tell the story not his story, to tell the story. It’s like Raphael painting Jesus’s wife knowing that the pope would have his head.”

Okay now.

“It takes so much for a me or an Eminem or you know, to come back and embrace and say, you know what, but we have to deliver this on a major level to make a difference. It’s just such a shame that all your favorite artists are so underground. It’s like not cool for no one to hear shit anymore. And that’s the hipster justification of failure.”

Yes yes yes!

More importantly he is wearing some very nice suits. And I hear his forthcoming album is going to have some trippy collaborators from “the underground” which will blow our minds.

I skipped this year’s SXSW music conference in Austin, TX, preferring the saner pleasures of Big Ears in Knoxville, TN. Many of my friends went to Austin, however, and they came away talking about this band, Mountain Man, most of all. These live videos of the band I found online certainly make them seem intriguing — both inside:

And out:

My suspicion is that this is a band that might evoke more depth (a real emotional connection) than they do length (a long term interest). But that makes them almost perfect for a post like this.

Buy some of their music here and decide for yourself. Or just listen in with the embeddable player down below: